Truthwitch

by Susan Dennard

  “Fine,” Kullen snapped. “What do you need?”

  “I need you on the Jana, so we can…” Merik hesitated, the words for his next command suddenly vanishing in a surge of doubt.

  “So we can…?” Kullen prompted.

  “Hand over the domna,” Merik finally said. He didn’t like it, but it was one life versus many. “Escort Safiya topside and give her up to the Marstoks.”

  Kullen set his jaw, gaze darkening but no argument coming forth. He may have disagreed but he was still saluting and following orders. He rocketed off the Marstoki deck.

  Merik spun around, summoning commands for Vivia and her crew, but his words died on his tongue. Nubrevnan sailors were streaming below the Marstoki galleon’s deck, and six witches stood in a row, eyes trained on Vivia.

  That row included Merik’s Tidewitches.

  “Gather your winds and waters!” Vivia bellowed.

  Merik lunged, using his wind to cross the ship in mere breaths. He slammed down beside his sister. “What the Hell are you doing? As your admiral, I ordered you to release the Marstoks and return to your ship!”

  Vivia sneered. “And we all know that I should have been named admiral. Look around you, Merry.” She waved to the Tidewitches. “You have lost Father’s men, and I have gained an arsenal.”

  Merik’s breath choked off at those words—at the reality of what faced him. His ship, his command, and everything he’d worked for were dissolving before his eyes. Taken by the same sister who’d always crushed him beneath her boot heel. “There will be consequences,” he said, voice low but words desperate. Pleading, even. “Someone, somewhere will demand blood for what you’re doing.”

  “Perhaps.” She shrugged, a movement so casual it showed her true feelings more than words ever could. “At least, I will have protected our people, though, just as I will be the one to bring the empires to their knees.” Vivia turned her back on Merik. “Prepare Tides, men! We sail to the Sentries of Noden to deliver our new weapons!”

  A distant boom rang out. Merik jerked toward the horizon—to where the four Marstoki war galleons now sailed. And to where cannonballs sped for the Jana. Merik had just enough time to thrust his winds frantically out.

  The cannonballs dropped into the sea.

  Merik leaped off the Marstoki ship and flew to the Jana’s main deck. His knees crunched; he transferred the power into a roll, then he was on his feet and screaming for Hermin. “Tell the Marstoks we surrender! Tell them to cease their fire and we’ll hand over the domna!”

  The Voicewitch limped onto the main deck, eyes glowing pink and lips moving furiously.

  Merik scanned his ship and his crew, heart rising as he counted the gaps. Not all of his father’s sailors had abandoned him. Merik’s original crew had remained.

  A second boom thundered. Merik pitched around, grabbing ineffectually for enough magic to stop the cannon fire.

  Wind cycloned out—but not from Merik … from Kullen. The first mate was dragging to Merik’s side and heaving his witchery outward.

  Merik had no time to thank Kullen, or to fret over Kullen’s lungs. “Why aren’t the Marstoks stopping?” he roared at Hermin. “Tell them they can have the girl!”

  Hermin’s head was wagging. “They say the girl isn’t enough now. They want their ship back, Admiral.” With a shaking hand, Hermin pointed to the Marstoki galleon.

  Despite its broken masts, it was sailing toward Nubrevna on Tidewitched waves—and with no witches of his own, it was Merik who would be left behind to pay the price.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Iseult came hazily into consciousness wondering why the world stank of dead fish, why the ceiling had turned to cloudy, purple skies, and why her arm was on fire.

  A whimper crawled from her throat. She opened her eyes—and instantly screamed.

  A man bowed over her, his curly beard so massive it fell on her stomach. His hands rested on her wounded arm, and whatever he did, it hurt like the hell-gates.

  Iseult yelped again and tried to wriggle free.

  “Hush,” Safi whispered, her hands firmly gripping Iseult’s shoulder. “He’s healing you.”

  “The muscle is repairing,” murmured Evrane from Iseult’s other side. “And it will only get worse before it gets better.”

  With a tight swallow—her throat was so dry—Iseult looked back at the bearded healer. His Threads were a concentrated green, though they shivered with annoyed shades of red.

  He was healing her, but he wasn’t pleased about it.

  That was when Iseult noticed the ropes around his wrists—they were almost hidden beneath his voluminous sleeves. He was a prisoner. And yes, now that she focused beyond the healer, she saw other Threads spinning with annoyance and the occasional furious crimson. Beneath the Threads were men in rows, their uniforms the same as the healer’s.

  She angled back to Safi. “Is this the Prince’s ship?”

  “No. It’s his sister’s ship, actually—”

  A boom exploded in the distance.

  “What was that?” Iseult croaked.

  Safi’s Threads flashed with guilty rust. “We’re, uh, under attack by a Marstoki naval fleet.”

  “Apparently,” Evrane said in a steely tone, “your friend is betrothed to the Emperor of Cartorra, so now the Marstoks are after her.”

  Another thunderous boom echoed into Iseult’s ears. Safi threw a frantic glance toward the ocean. “They’re approaching fast.” She switched to Marstoki, angling back to the healer. “Hurry, or you will taste a Carawen sword—”

  “He most certainly will not,” Evrane inserted.

  “—and a Carawen stiletto.”

  “He will not feel that either, but”—Evrane shifted into the Marstoki language too—“we will all drown if you do not finish quickly.”

  The man sneered. “I can only work so fast. This wretched Nomatsi has the flesh of demon-spawn.”

  In a move too quick to prevent, Safi ripped a knife from Evrane’s baldric and thrust it against the man’s neck. “Say that again, and you die.”

  The man’s glare deepened—but he also put new effort into his work. More cannon fire sounded, but it seemed a thousand miles away. As did the stink of dead fish and the tickling of the healer’s beard.

  At last, Safi’s voice cut through Iseult’s pain: “You’re finished? The wound is healed?”

  “Yes, though she will need time to recover.”

  “But she will not die?”

  “No. Unfortunately. ’Matsi filth—” The man’s voice choked off, replaced by a howl, and the feel of his beard vanished from Iseult’s stomach.

  Just as Iseult’s vision started to sharpen and clear, Safi shoved the healer toward the other sailors. “Damn you,” she spat after him. “Son of a Voidwitch. May you tumble through the hell-gates forever—”

  “That’s enough,” Iseult said.

  She tried to stand. Evrane crouched low, offering her a hand—no, offering her something in her hand. A short cord with a tiny Painstone.

  “This will numb you until the healer’s magic is finished.” She slipped the cord over Iseult’s right wrist. The stone flared to life—and the pain washed back. Fresh energy coursed through her, and she even managed a smile for Evrane as she stood.

  The instant Iseult reached her feet, though, a sharp light filled her eyes.

  She couldn’t see a thing for the silver radiance of it, vibrating and swirling. Flashing with lines of purple hunger and black death …

  Threads, Iseult realized, fear and awe mingling together. The largest Threads she had ever seen—at least half the length of the boat. And oddest of all, they seemed to come from beneath the hull. Underwater.

  “Something’s coming,” she whispered. “Something massive and … hungry.”

  Evrane stiffened. Then she grabbed Iseult’s shoulder. “Can you see animal Threads?”

  “No.” The silver and black were so bright, so fast. “But what else would be under the boat?

 
“Noden save us,” Evrane breathed. “The sea foxes are he—”

  The last of Evrane’s words were lost in an explosion of water and sound. The warship tipped back as something huge—something monstrous—crashed up from the sea.

  Water rained down, and the bound Marstoks shouted their terror.

  But Iseult barely noticed the sailors—all she saw was the creature before her. A serpent as wide as the ship’s mast snaked from the waves toward the starboard prow. Rather than scales, it wore thick silver fur, and its head was shaped like a fox’s—though ten times … twenty times larger than any normal fox.

  As it snapped its jaw and swiveled toward the warship, Iseult saw more teeth than any natural creature should possess.

  And fangs. The thing most definitely had fangs.

  But what scared Iseult the most was how the creature blazed with the Threads of the bloodthirsty—and how its mouth was opening wide …

  The creature screamed.

  * * *

  When Ryber had described a sea fox, this was not what Safi had imagined.

  And she definitely hadn’t imagined that it would scream like the souls of the damned. A thousand layers screeched from the monster’s mouth—and then screeched from a second monster now towering over the Jana nearby.

  Safi’s eardrums split, and she was vaguely aware of her pulse ramping up. She flung a glance toward the Jana, searching for Merik across the foaming sea—but her search was short-lived when the nearest fox’s shriek broke off.

  It had found a target: one of the Marstoks closest to the ship’s rail. The man’s hands sparked and sputtered as he reached for his witchery, but with his wrists bound, he was too clumsy to fight back.

  Safi scrambled to her feet, thrust out her knife, and roared, “Leave him alone!”

  The sea fox whipped its long neck Safi’s way.

  Shit. Safi had just enough time to admire the icy blue of the monster’s eyes—zooming in fast—before she flung out her throwing knife. It stabbed an inky pupil, and the sea fox flipped down, screaming, to splash beneath the water. The boat tipped dangerously, but the sea fox didn’t resurface.

  Safi flung a desperate glance at the Jana and found the second sea fox had left as well.

  “Nice job,” called Iseult. She stepped carefully across the main deck, clearly not in possession of her sea legs. A cleaver gleamed in her left hand.

  Safi’s heart soared into her skull. Seeing Iseult, standing tall—no matter if her energy was from the Painstone—made Safi want to laugh in relief. Or cry. Probably both.

  But it was Iseult’s eyes that really got her. They were bright and they were open.

  “New weapon?” Safi asked, her voice embarrassingly pinched and thick.

  Iseult’s lips quirked up. “I have to save your hide somehow.”

  Safi’s throat squeezed tighter. “Carawen steel is the best, you know.”

  “It is,” Evrane growled, stalking toward the girls—sea legs strong against the boat’s trembling. “And you, Domna”—she glared at Safi—“just wasted that steel on making the monster angrier.”

  “I got rid of it.” Safi motioned to the now-empty waves.

  “No! That is how they hunt.” Evrane unsheathed a second throwing knife. “They test the ship—see how we fight. Then they dive. As we speak, both foxes are swimming for the surface, building momentum as they go. They will try to unbalance the boats and grab any men who fall.”

  Safi’s mouth dropped open; salty air swept in. “You mean it’s coming back?”

  “Yes.” She shoved the knife at Safi. “So take this knife and widen your stances, fools!”

  Safi snatched up the knife just as Iseult cried, “Here it comes!”

  Wood exploded in a deafening crunch. The boat tipped sharply left … left … Safi angled her body into the deck, against the ship’s rise.

  Screams ripped out behind her. Marstoki sailors tumbled for the water, and with their hands bound, they would fall right in.

  Safi and Iseult locked eyes—and Safi knew her Threadsister thought the same thing. As one, they stopped fighting the rise of the ship, and instead they fell into it.

  The wood grabbed at Safi’s bare soles. Locked her down and forced her into tiny, bouncing hops behind Iseult, whose boots slid more easily over the wet planks.

  Iseult reached the other side first, and with a roar, she grabbed at a green tunic right before its owner toppled overboard. It was the bearded Firewitch healer.

  “Not so filthy now, huh?” Safi shouted.

  But then a cry burst up. A second Marstok—just a boy—fell toward the railing. Safi dove for him. He flipped over the edge. Safi flipped after. She snagged his ankle—and then Iseult snagged hers.

  “I’ve … got you,” Iseult gritted, hugging the railing with her bad arm. “Not for long, though—oh shit.”

  The boat stopped tipping. Gravity took hold, and the ship fell the other way in a howl of water and resisting wood.

  Safi and the boy swung onto the boat, Iseult shrieking from the pain of holding on … until Evrane was there, somehow still on her feet, and towing Safi upright.

  The sea fox burst from the waves—way too close to where Iseult was scrabbling back.

  Safi threw her knife. It punched into the fox’s eye, inches away from the first knife.

  The monster shrieked and dove once more. Saltwater rained down, the ship pitching all the more wildly.

  Safi pulled Iseult to her feet. Iseult’s right arm hung limp, her face creased with pain—though she still managed to yell, “Nice aim.”

  “Except I was going for the other eye.”

  “Stop doing that!” Evrane shouted, several paces away and with the young Marstok beside her. “You’re wasting my knives!” Her sword arced out. She slashed the boy’s bindings. “And stop standing there! We need to free these men while we can.”

  Iseult nodded tiredly and staggered for the nearest set of sailors. But Safi was—yet again—weaponless.

  Evrane unbuckled her last throwing knife. “Don’t lose this, Domna.”

  “Yes, yes.” Safi seized it and twisted for the nearest sailor. With three quick hacks, she had him unbound. She moved to the next man, then the next. One after another, she freed them from their ropes. The unbound men went on to help their comrades, while a handful of free Firewitches moved into a defensive square formation at the center of the deck. Safi spared a glance toward the water—still empty—and toward the Jana.

  The sea fox that had terrorized it was also nowhere to be seen.

  For half a moment, Safi thought maybe the monsters had given up the hunt … but then Iseult shrieked out, “Here it comes! Southern side!”

  Southern side. The exact side on which Safi now sawed through a sailor’s ropes. Shit, shit, shit … She cut through the last of the fibers and the man scrabbled away.

  The sea fox erupted from the waves, flinging its head over the railing. Teeth hurtled in—teeth and swirling eyes and a scream to crush her skull.

  It was going to eat her. It would snap her body in half and swallow her—

  Wind slammed into Safi’s chest. Into her legs. She spun wildly back, away from the monster’s maw. As sea and sky and ship blurred together with Firewitch flames, she spotted Merik flying at her.

  Gratitude—relief—surged through her.

  Safi hit the deck—as did he. On top of her. Then, as the boat hitched the other way, he rolled off and thundered, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Safi blinked, briefly stunned. Then she scrabbled up and shouted, “You’re giving me to the Marstoks!”

  “Not anymore, I’m not!” He unsheathed his cutlass and, in a blur of steel, he sliced through Marstoki bindings. One after the other. And as he moved, he yelled, “Noden has favored me, Domna, and only a fool ignores such gifts.”

  “Gifts?” she squawked, sawing at an old man’s ropes and eyeing the waters. “How is a thrice-damned sea fox a gift?”

  “Stop talking!” Merik point
ed to the ship’s ladder. “Go below and stay out of the way!”

  “Don’t do that!” Iseult cried, stumbling toward Safi with Evrane on her heels. Her breath was ragged, her face pinched. “The fox is going for the back. We need to reach the men at the front.”

  Without another word, they all bolted for the ship’s fore. Safi and Iseult yanked man after man from the railing and shoved them at Evrane and Merik, who sliced rope after rope. The Firewitches stayed in their tight formation, ready to fight.

  But the fox was much, much too fast for the Firewitches—or anyone else. It crashed into the ship’s aft. Wood cracked, and as the ship tipped violently up, Safi tried to keep from plummeting into the sea.

  Water exploded from the front of the ship. The second sea fox reared up, shrieking and hurtling close, ready to pluck man after man off the exposed deck—flaming flesh or no.

  Safi looked at Iseult. Her Threadsister nodded. As before, the girls stopped fighting the vertical rise, and together, they barreled down the deck. Right for the sea fox’s mouth.

  Safi hit the railing—it was almost parallel to the waves now—and straightened to her fullest height. Her knife slashed through furry jaw. Blood rained down.

  Then Iseult was there, whirling low along the bulwark. Her cleaver bit deep into the monster’s neck. The sea fox jolted, head dropping.

  More blood spurted as Iseult turned her cleaver high while Safi twirled in low, pushing all her strength into the perfect thrust of her knife.

  The creature’s mouth fell wide. Safi let the knife loose. It flew straight and true, into the fox’s throat.

  And Iseult’s cleaver thrust out. It sliced through the monster’s forehead.

  The sea fox screamed—a raw, final sound—before it sank beneath the waves.

  The first sea fox released its hold on the ship. Safi and Iseult had just enough time to latch on to the railing and not get catapulted into the sea when the warship dropped. Waves sprayed, men rolled and tumbled, but Safi and Iseult clung tight.